No Country for Women - Humanism, Secularism, Feminism

Taslima Nasreen

Taslima Nasreen, an award-winning writer, physician, secular humanist and human rights activist, is known for her powerful writings on women oppression and unflinching criticism of religion, despite forced exile and multiple fatwas calling for her death. In India, Bangladesh and abroad, Nasreen’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry and memoir have topped the best-seller’s list.

Taslima Nasreen was born in Bangladesh. She started writing when she was 13. Her writings won the hearts of people across the border and she landed with the prestigious literary award Ananda from India in 1992. Taslima won The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament in 1994. She received the Kurt Tucholsky Award from Swedish PEN, the Simone de Beauvoir Award and Human Rights Award from Government of France, Le Prix de l' Edit de Nantes from the city of Nantes, France, Academy prize from the Royal Academy of arts, science and literature from Belgium. She is a Humanist Laureate in The International Academy for Humanism,USA. She won Distinguished Humanist Award from International Humanist and Ethical Union, Free-thought Heroine award from Freedom From Religion foundation, USA., IBKA award, Germany,and Feminist Press Award, USA . She got the UNESCO Madanjeet Singh prize for Promotion of the Tolerance and Non-violence in 2005. She received the Medal of honor of Lyon. She got honorary citizenship from Paris, Nantes, Lyon, Metz, Thionville, Esch etc. Taslima was awarded the Condorcet-Aron Prize at the “Parliament of the French Community of Belgium” in Brussels and Ananda literary award again in 2000.

Bestowed with honorary doctorates from Gent University and UCL in Belgium, and American University of Paris and Paris Diderot University in France, she has addressed gatherings in major venues of the world like the European Parliament, National Assembly of France, Universities of Sorbonne, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, etc. She got fellowships as a research scholar at Harvard and New York Universities. She was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in the USA in 2009.

Taslima has written 40 books in Bengali, which includes poetry, essays, novels and autobiography series. Her works have been translated in thirty different languages. Some of her books are banned in Bangladesh. Because of her thoughts and ideas she has been banned, blacklisted and banished from Bengal, both from Bangladesh and West Bengal part of India. She has been prevented by the authorities from returning to her country since 1994, and to West Bengal since 2007.

EVENTS

The world is getting more and more synthetic.
People are becoming more and more artificial. They smile at others but they do not really smile. They ask acquaintances how they are doing, whether everything is fine, but they would not mind if those acquaintances were not doing well. More and more, words are becoming artificial, coming more from lips, less and less from hearts. The case can be made that the desire for artificial flavor is growing all over the world. We are encouraged not to like the flavor of tea anymore. Advertisements publicize the flavor of chrysanthemum, pineapple, orange, cherry, and similar tastes. All kinds of artificial fruit flavors get mixed with water, which is now called tea. Some say they love fish, but they can’t tolerate the smell of fish, so they add lots of smelly things to destroy the original smell of fish before eating any.The other day I met a man who smelled like mango. Why did he smell like mango, I asked? He smiled and said it was his deodorant. My reaction was that I preferred his own body odor. Men like to have sex with women, but there are many men who do not like the smell of healthy vaginas. What do they want? Well, they want vaginas that smell like jasmine or jackfruit. They want their favorite fruits and flowers inside vagina, and they want vaginal fluid that seemingly turns into some kind of fruit juice! But should women feel embarrassed when their male partners complain about vaginal odor? Women should know that if a strange smell comes from the vagina, it is mostly because of semen or condoms. Both old semen and spermicide have offensive odors. So do bacterial vaginosis, candida vulvovaginitis, trichomoniasis, all not as strange as they sound.

Vaginal fluid is made up of normal vaginal secretions, sloughed off cells from the vaginal wall, and cervical mucous. The vagina is a self-cleaning organ. Like the mouth, the vagina is full of bacteria. It is necessary for a vagina to have a balance of different species of bacteria. Women should avoid disrupting the delicate vaginal balance. Why should women perform vaginal douching in order to make ignorant men happy! Vaginal douching is nothing but applying some annoying, irritating chemicals to destroy vaginal pH and its originality. Douching can push the bacteria from the vagina into the uterus and develop an uterine infection.

Meanwhile, the penis smells fishy, does it not? Sometimes it smells like dead rats. It is because of poor hygiene. Men do not always wash their penis. I haven’t heard many women complain about foul-smelling penises. I have heard none who believe that the penis should smell like rose or papaya. Smart women advise men to wash their penises. Smart women do not worry if their vaginas smell like vaginas.

People should try to be real and original. But many people are becoming more and more fake, artificial and robot-like. The smell of robots is everywhere. Why encourage a more synthetic human condition!